The Three Risk-tak(e)ers

Friends
An ode to our friendship

A fictitious non-fiction

This post has been submitted for 'Friends Forever' under Blogadda's Win This Wednesday contest.

This is the story of three friends- Aniket, Vimal and Shashi- who were not content with 'what is' but wanted to test their potential to reach what they believed as 'what ought to be'. With their passion to keep their future at stake, they came to be known far and wide as 'The Three Risk-tak(e)ers'.

The story starts with Aniket. He too planned to become a conventional engineer as had his other two buddies post their matriculation. But fate had something else in store for him. After putting in two years of 'hard work' or at least as others believed he did, his results were not worth landing him anywhere. So he had to be content with a B.A. rather than a B.E. It was here that his interest in theatre and drama started and by the end of three years, our small town boy had packed his bags to try his luck in the tinsel town.

The start was good. He landed at the doors of the man under whom superstars like Retake Roshan and many other star-kids had groomed. He ended the acting course with the sorts of 'first class first pass' distinction. However from here the real struggle started. Hunting for movies he ended up acting in two serials.

In the first one which got telecast on Mony T.V., he had three scenes and well in each scene the poor guy, playing a villainous role had to bear a couple of slaps and a punch from the main protagonists.

In the other one on Moon T.V., he played the role of one of the friends of one of the many lead protagonists of the serial. However, before our poor Aniket could show some of his talent the serial was taken off air as the producers realised the only people watching it were the near and dear ones of the dozen actors and actresses who got to debut in their low-budget venture.

Alongside, Aniket also acted in a movie based on the lives of gay prostitutes in which he played one of the leads but the movie couldn't lead him anywhere as even after a year or so, it was craving to see the lights of a projector room of any multiplex. So Aniket had no reason to be 'gay' after all as the only thing he got post-movie were the snickering and gay jokes of his two buddies.

From here we move to the lives of our other two characters. Well both of them successfully completed their engineering unlike their actor buddy. However, Vimal had the childhood dream of becoming an administrator. To pursue this dream, he decided not to take up any job and get into the preparation mode for undoubtedly, the toughest examinations of India.

He was all pumped up as he left his city and reached the national capital to take some preliminary coaching. New city, new life, new friends were there for just about half a year as then he returned back home to continue further.

Soon he found himself trapped within the four walls with his 'books and books'. Most of the friends had left the city to take up their jobs or pursue post-graduation. Though for some time Vimal got distracted thanks to an ill-timed relationship, he was back to his senses in time to fall back in love with his books. With a couple of years gone by since he completed his B.E., Vimal was still preparing and appearing for the exams though better prepared than before.

Unlike Vimal, Shashi got placed in a highly reputed consultancy McKaunsi and got pay package worth envy. Within a year he also got a chance to visit the country of honeymoons in the laps of the beautiful Alps, on a business assignment. But somehow Shashi was not content despite his stability.

Meanwhile on the global front, stability became a paleolithic word as the markets started tumbling and businesses began closing. Companies were finding pretexts to chop off manpower while the poor executives were having sleepless nights fearing for their future.

Amidst all this, out of no where, Shashi decided to leave his secured job and go in for his own start-up. Starting a new business while others are closing down by dozens, seems a bit vague. However, Shashi wanted to join the league of the other two 'extraordinary not-so-gentle men' and no one could stop him. A couple of months passed since he gave resignation but still his web-based company was nowhere to be seen in the network jungle.

These three friends have their own distict dreams. They can't take things as they come. There are many others like them who dream big. Many perch out to realise them. However others prefer to follow the conventional trends because for them security is above their self-actualisation.

These three and numerous other risk-tak(e)ers may succeed or they may fail but one thing is for sure, decades hence sitting on their arm chair they won't be sulking upon thinking- I wish I had given it a try.

Disclaimer:
This story is not based on anyone (except Ankit, Vipul and Shashaank). Any resemblance to anyone living or dead or kept on ventilator as not yet brain dead is purely coincidental.

Image Courtesy
http://meaninglessguy.files.wordpress.com (edited)